As first-round university offers land in students' inboxes this morning, one school in north-east Victoria is reflecting on its students' achievements after they navigated the impacts of bushfires, COVID and the deaths of several peers.
Located along the NSW-Victorian border, about 120 kilometres from Albury-Wodonga is Corryong College, where about 260 students attend.
Eighteen of those students completed year 12 this year. Of those, seven sat for VCE exams and a further nine students in year 11 completed at least one VCE exam.
Despite the adversities, the school ranked within the top ten government schools in the state with a mean study score of 34.
Careers coordinator Sandra Kovacic said it was an impressive achievement given what the community has endured.
"We were very surprised, given all the trauma that the students have experienced in the last three years," she said.
"It was great for them to come out on top."
Bushfires and COVID
This year's graduates started their VCE journey amidst the devastating Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20.
"In our current cohort, we would have had students in the CFA [Country Fire Authority] and students who were directly impacted," Ms Kovacic said.
"One student was sitting on their front verandah and [the fire has] come up in the block in front of their house.
"They were sitting on their verandah all night waiting for their house not to burn down — it's pretty unbelievable."
More than 60 homes were destroyed in the Upper Murray region and the school become an evacuation centre.
Only months later, while the community was still recovering from the fires, the pandemic hit.
Victoria was sent into lockdown and living in a border town added an extra layer of complexity, separating families and isolating students from their support networks.
"Not being able to be connected to their peers to recover from that immediate tragedy was a big thing," Ms Kovacic said.
"The ability to recover after the fires was hindered by COVID.
"I suppose it became forgotten with everything else."
Remote learning also presented its own challenges with some students having limited or no internet access.
Taking a mental toll
Since the Black Summer bushfires, two young people in the community have died by suicide.
Last year, the school's 2020 school captain was tragically killed in a plane crash in Sutton, north of Canberra.
Lisa Gibbs is a professor of public health and director of the child and community wellbeing unit at Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.
She is also part of the Centre for Disaster Management and Public Safety and has investigated the impacts of the Black Saturday bushfires on students who had started primary school that year.
"Our research has shown that for that cohort — so not for every student — there is a pattern of reduced academic achievements eight years later," she said.
"Being exposed to multiple disasters increases the risk of mental health difficulties.
"It can affect students' capacity to learn; there might be difficulty concentrating in class or there might be some behavioural difficulties for some students.
"[Corryong College students] have been exposed [to multiple disasters] and to show [those] results is a real testimony to them, to their capacity to adjust to major difficulties, to their family support, and to the school's response to that."
While in-school recovery programs have made a difference, recovery from these events will be ongoing.
